Conference hydra::dejavu

I've dowsed from time to time.  I don't believe there's anything special
that dowsers have which others don't.  Like many other such things, it depends
on a mental attitude some have called "reversing space", meaning that you
relax and permit unconscious influences from outside your body- and mind-images
to act on you.  At least for a novice like me, it's not easy to "test your
ability" by dowsing for an object someone else has hidden.  Some would say
that such a "testing" approach to paranormal capabilities is a headstrong,
controlling attitude which interferes with the process.  All I'd be willing
to say is that >>frivolous<< testing is likely to interfere with the state
of mind associated with "reversing space."

Although I have found things on occasion (a dead possum once, now there's a
treasure!), it is a mystifying experience.

By the way, in Vermont, there's an annual dowsing convention that draws people
from all over the country.  I forget when it occurs, but there's usually
a bit of news coverage at the time.

Doug

I have dowsed successfully at times and not-so-successfully at 
other times.  Dowsing, like much of this phenomena, is subtle and 
rather vulnerable to disbelief and so-called "scientific" 
testing.  It is also vulnerable to physical and mental states of 
the dowser -- when you're hot, you're hot, and when you're not, 
you're not.

I suspect that dowsing is a hidden physical reaction to external
mentally selected targets.  In other words,  the dowser reacts
physically in a subtle way to the presence or the location of a 
target (coins, water, oil, etc) that he/she has mentally 
visualized.  In that way, the rods, the forked stick, the 
pendulum, the bobber, all show motion unconsciously induced by 
the dowser.

Some very experienced dowsers operate without any physical 
instruments.  Some dowsers can locate water and oil and other 
objects on a map and later verify the location physically after 
drilling.  There are some who make a good living indeed from this
developed talent.  Needless to say, the oil companies use it 
also, but not all of them.

Dowsing was used in Viet Nam by Marines to locate Viet Cong 
bunker tunnels.

Dowsing in used quietly (most people aren't ready for this stuff, 
ya know) by city water departments, telephone crews, and power 
companies to locate their underground utility services.

Dowsing is also being used to sense so-called unhealthy geopathic
zones and raylines that exist over the earth above water veins
and rock/strata fractures. 

There are other sorts of rays and power lines (leys) over the earth, as 
yet only detectable, whose function and purpose are yet to be 
determined or discovered. 

The dowsers usually belong to the American Society of Dowsers 
located in Danburry, Vermont.  They do have an annual convention 
where you can learn all about this stuff.  It is attended by 
hundreds of people.  The Society has a quarterly magazine.
Dues are somewhere around $20 bucks +/- $5 (I forgot).
You can also buy many books and supplies from the Society.

Send me mail if you are interested.

George

	    Can't dowsing also be done with a pendulum?  I've located
	hidden pyramids with a pendulum . . .
			<_Jym_>

"Dowsing" is usually done with a forked stick, but there are those who
use pivoting l-shaped pieces of wire (pieces of wire coathangers in loose
handles seem to work well); these latter have been reported to have been
used effectively to locate underground tunnels in combat conditions and 
to locate water mains, etc.

Using a pendulum overlaps dowsing, but technically is known as "radiasthesia."
Some pendulums used in a dowsing sense have hollows in them for the operator
to place samples.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    
    I grew up in Vermont, and the locals taking dowsing very seriously.
    My grandmother is the local dowser, and has often been called in
    when local people want to dig wells.  She has been quite sucessful,
    and uses a forked willow branch from an ancient willow tree split
    by lightning which grow on her property.
    
    I have never seen her dowse, so I can only take others' testimony
    to her sucess.  I have seen her do other amazing things, though.
    I frequntly wear opals, and have some that are brilliantly coloured
    and beautiful.  She told me she could not wear opals, and proved
    it.  She took my blue Australian opal triplet (opal covered in crystal
    and backed with black onyx - protects a soft stone and deepens the
    colour) and held it in her hand.  It turned milky white and lost
    all colour.  I took it back and the colour returned.  Anyone have
    any physical explanation for this phenomenon?
    
    Rita
    
    

    My experience with dowsing occurred while working with my town's
    water department one summer. Part of our job was to locate water
    mains in need of repair. The workmen, as far from believers in para-
    normal phenomena as you could imagine, would forgo sophisticated
    detecting devices for l-shaped pieces of wire. They would hold the
    short ends, and keep the long ends parallel and facing directly
    to the front. As they walked toward the general location of the
    main, the wires slowly rotated 90 degrees in opposite directions,
    indicating the presence of the main. Only then would the workmen
    begin the expensive digging operation. I really wouldn't have believed
    it if I hadn't seen it work every time. 
    
    -peter donahue-
    
    
    

    re .6:
    
    I have heard similar l-shaped rods were used in Vietnam during the
    war to aid in locating undersgound tunnels left or occupied by
    hostiles.
    
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    RE: .6, .7
    
    I went to a lecture on dowsing this weekend, and the lecturer told
    us that dowsing can be used for _anything_.  As well as finding
    water, it can be used to find minerals, the best cut of meat in
    a supermarket, to point to a particular person or place, or to
    answer yes or no questions.  I'm sure it could be used to find
    underground tunnels as well.
    
    Kathleen

    
    Dick Smith is an Australian multi-millionaire, who owns the Australian
    equiv. of Radio Shack.
    
    He got about a dozen established dowsers from around Australia and
    put them to the following simple test.
    
    They laid out a series of 10 6" water pipes in parallel on the ground,
    all fed from a common source and leading to a common sink.  They
    had a valve at the source end, so that any number of them could
    have water flowing through at once.
    
    They then told the dowser's which pipe had the water running (and
    it did) then let them try out to see if it worked.  All agreed they
    could detect the H2O, the wires twisted, etc.
    
    Then they did the same experiment again, but DIDN'T tell the dowsers
    which one of the ten it was in, then again with another randomly
    selected pipe.
    
    RESULT:
    	When the dowsers were told which pipe had the running water,
	they could detect it.  When they weren't told, they averaged
    	SLIGHTLY WORSE THAN PURE CHANCE WOULD PREDICT.
    
    	Then came all the excuses...
    
    /Bevin

    
    Taken from OMNI Feb. '88 w/o permission:
    
    " 			DOWSING WITH MAGNETITE
    
    "Sticks vibrate, pendulums spin, and metal rods react to the unseen
    presence of water, say the world's dowsers.  But could dowsing itself
    be all wet?
    
    "Not according to Norman Eastwood, a retired British physician who
    believes that the dowsers may be on to something.  He has done what
    he calls "some amateur science" to isolate, in biophysical terms,
    a human nagnetic sense, whih could account for dowsers' results.
    
    "According to Eastwood, a magnetic substance called magnetite has
    been found in the necks of homing pigeons; that same material, he
    adds, may exist in the human body.  To test for human magnetite,
    in fact, Eastwood suspended a pendulum over his own body and looked
    for what he calls North and South Pole reactions, in which the pendulum
    rotates clockwise or counterclockwise instead of swinging to and fro.
    He found a polar reaction over his face, parts of his abdomen, and
    limb joints, suggesting, he says, the presence of magnetic material
    Aluminum foil placed over these same body parts tended to suppress
    the magnetic response.
    
    "Although he has never dowsed for water, Eastwood says he has been
    able to locate old Roman drainage ditches with his pendulum technique.
    He suspects that this is possible either because the ditches contain
    large amounts of iron or because water still runs in them and gives
    off a small electro magnetic field to which the magnetic sensors
    in his body respond.
    
    "Very unlikely, says James Randi, a magician who has exposed dozens
    of dowsing claims.  It's not that Eastwood is a fraud, emphasizes
    Randi, but like most dowsers, "he's very naive about these things
    and has never thought of designing a controlled experinment to actually
    test the phenomenon"

    

    RE: .10
    
    Hahahahaha!  Thanks for brightening my day!
    
    I especially got a kick out of:
    
    "Aluminum foil placed over these same body parts tended to suppress
    the magnetic response."
    
    John M.

    Having been taught by one of the masters, John Shelley of Farmers
    Almanac fame I took it upon myself one day to offer my services to my
    scientific minded brother, to find his cesspool.  He had been paying
    someone by the hour to locate it, after maps from the city hall turned
    out to be for a former system. Although he was disgusted by the
    probalility of my finding this with my dowsing rods, he allowed me on
    his property and poceeded to tell me where he thought it might be. I
    asked him not to even give me a hint because it would hinder me in
    getting right to it. I came out the front door and at the bottom of the
    stairs, mentally asked "to the right or left?" When I asked "right?"
    the rods opened (indicating yes to me) I walked a short distance and
    they opened again, indicating not to go any further, I knew to go to
    the left because I would have walked into the side of the house if I 
    turned right. I continued to walk toward the garage and the rods opened
    again, I asked if this was the spot and the indcation again was, yes. I 
    then asked how deep down he would have to dig, and as I counted up
    starting with two feet, I reached four feet, I think ( I can't remember
    exactly) and I told him to start digging. He resisted, of course but
    when he dug, sure enough the water started to leak into the hole, I was
    off by about six inches. He has never given credit to dowsing for
    finding the aromatic chamber and says that I found it by chance. 
    First of all, it took me about three minutes to find what a
    professional could not find in two days of poking and digging and how
    did we know the depth?
    I will tell of some other interesting dowsing tales at a later date.
    
    Pat

         Where I live in the Santa Cruz mountains everyone has "their"
    own well, going anywhere from perhaps 200 feet down to about 500-600
    feet.  Last fall, the big earthquake we had caused major geological
    damage to certain areas, including causing aquifer fissures with
    a corresponding loss of the water within.  What this means is that
    most of my neighbors had well damage, some losing their wells 
    immediately and others losing their wells over the next six months
    or so.  There are some that continue to lose water but I have
    heard of many of them stabilizing (some at only a gallon or so
    per minute.)  
         Well, with all the damage done (I'm talking roughly 40 wells)
    it would seem somewhat foolish to drill a well at this time; however,
    various individuals have and have had interesting results (one man
    found water at 400 feet at over 100 gallons a minute but the pressure
    was so strong that the well collapsed, e.g.)  But along came a new
    property owner, anxious to build a house (and there is a requirement
    to have water prior to any house-building permit issuance.)  He
    hired a driller knowing that the two closest wells on either side of
    him had gone belly-up.  They drilled, 350 feet with no sign of water.
    Along came a douser...he walked in a straight line from that hole to
    a spot approximately 150 feet away and said "here."  They moved the
    rig.  At 130 feet they hit 80 gallons per minute!  This is quite
    phenomenal in that neighborhood.  I live just two parcels from this
    land-owner and witnessed the well myself.  The USGS geologist who was
    there (he has been studying wells in the area since the earthquake)
    says that he figures it must be a basin of water that didn't 
    fracture in the temblor (drilling too deep could rupture the basin,
    however.)  
         All this for dousing?  Impressive results.
    
    Frederick
    

    There was an article in The New Yorker magazine sometime
    within the last 2 years or so tht dealt with dowsing.
    If you are interested, it is very worthwhile reading.  
    Check the Reader's Guide or the electronic magazine
    indexes for a pointer to the article.
    
    /bruce

    
    My former father-in-law could dowse, and did so with any y-shaped stick
    he'd pick up at a site. When he first came to our house west of Boston,
    located on the north side of Nobscot Hill, once known for its spring
    water, he immediately located two sources of water that would have been
    easier to reach than the 400-foot deep artesian well that the previous
    owners had dug.
    
    He claimed that dowsing was a Bates family trait, although my former
    husband hadn't inherited it...
    
    gloria

    
    
              The American Society of Dowsers annualy holds a convention
    in Vermont near the middle of September. Does anyone know the details?
    I don't have the pertinent information here at work.
    
                                     Later,
                                      Mark
    

    
    The convention is held in Danbury, Vt. but I don't have any details....
    I was going to try to make it this year, but I doubt I will.....
    
    guy

    Gee, isn't it sort of cheating to tell WHERE the convention is held?
    
    ESW

Hahahahahaha!!!

I can *see* all those dowsers heading to Vermont from all parts of the US;
dowsing sticks in their hands.......

:-):-):-)

Arie

    
    
              There is a two-day course given in Danville, Vt. preceding
    the annual convention in September- always the week that includes 
    September 15th. For more information about dowsing and/or the society
    write The American Society of Dowsers, Inc.
                  Danville, Vermon
                     05828-0024
    
        or call   1-802-684-3417
    
    Informational cassettes are offered for sale from AlphaSonics, P.O. 
    Box 271, Nashua, New Hampshire 03061-0271
    
    
    The usual disclaimers apply to both  A.S.D. and AlphaSonics.
    
                                 Later,
                                  Mark
    
    

    G'day,
    
     Re-.a_good_few concerning aluminium foil and its effect in reducing
    magnetic fields....
    
    Aluminium does do that. We once had a vt52 that had a distorted display
    until a sheet of aluminium was placed between it and the open processor
    chassis alongside. I believe its called Mu-metal shielding?
    
    and yes I have tried dowsing with copper rods and it seems to work -
    though the water supply was a bucket of water on the ground - we
    located it by being blindfolded and being pointed in the right
    direction and only stopping when the rods crossed. No reaction..... wet
    feet and sore shins... 
    
    derek
    

    I never believed  in dousing until my cousin showed my nephew and me up
    in Maine on February evening.
    	I ran blind experiments to prove repeatability for both myself and
    my nephew. We did repeat 100%.
    	I have showed a number of people how to do this. My results:
    
    1.	More men than women can do it
    2.	About 50% of the people I showed could do it
    
    
    BTW: I use coat hangers, they are easier. You must grip them in such a
    way that no matter how hard you squeeze, and you should squeeze
    tightly, the rods are still free to move. On co-worker here at DEC was
    amazed and showed his son who could also do it. They ran experiments
    with their city water, running and not running in the house. They could
    only find it when it was running. It was a blind test.
    	I love to look on someones face when the rods move!
    
    Steve

FYI,

Years ago, fresh water was unavailable on Bermuda.  People collected 
rain water by using their roofs to catch the rain and barrels or 
cisterns to hold it for later use.

Somewhere around the start of WW II, an naval base was built on 
Bermuda.  However, no fresh water was available for such a 
concentration of people.

It's a long story, but through a series of circumstances, an expert 
dowser in Maine was consulted and dowsed the island of Bermuda
***from a map***.  He located three wells.  They are still in use 
today.

Map dowsing and site dowsing are realities.

Many wells in New England have been dowsed.  Some well drillers use 
dowsing or work with dowsers.  I personally know of several wells that 
were located by dowsing.  One is on Martha's Vineyard. The well is 
less than 50 yards from the water line at the beach and *always* 
produces fresh water.

Anyone can learn to dowse.  It takes Belief, Desire, Expectation, and 
practice (and a positive attitude).

George

    I have only dowse once, about 15 years ago when I was home on leave
    from the Navy.  My father had just dowse and drilled a well for there
    new house.  I was kidding him about doing the dowsing and explain that
    it was just the unconscious mind directing the forked stick.   His
    reply was (in his southern accent) "it's no such of a thing, you try
    it".  
    
    Ok, I said.  I held the stick as tight as I could,  this stick wasn't
    going anywhere that I didn't want it to go.  This was a big mistake!
    As I got closer to the water the stick started been down.  Bark and
    skin not withstanding, the stick pointed to the ground.   During the
    time it was making the 180 degree swing I was attempting to hold it in
    one place.  It wasn't free swing like rods.  The force the forked stick
    had was awsome!